The total number of students attending school increased by slightly more than 28,600 since August 1996 with close to 3.2 million full-time students in August 1997, according to preliminary results from the 1997 National Schools Census released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The number of students attending government schools increased by 0.4 per cent from 1996 to 2,230,100 while attendance at non-government schools increased by 2.2 per cent to 941,600.

In total there were 9,609 schools, of which 73.2 per cent (7,029) were government schools and 26.8 per cent (2,580) were non-government schools.

Teaching staff at government schools increased by 1.1 per cent to 145, 570 full-time equivalent teaching staff, while non-government schools increased by 2.5 per cent to 61,250 full-time equivalent teaching staff. Both non-government and government schools had an average of one full-time equivalent teaching staff member for every 15.3 students.

Just over 80 per cent of Australia's 16 year old students attended school full-time in August 1997 while over 92 per cent of Australia's 15 year olds were at school full-time.

The apparent retention rate of secondary schools students to Year 12 was 71.8 per cent in 1997.

The National Schools Census is based on data collected through the National Schools Statistics Collection, which was established through the work of the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs Taskforce on School Statistics.